Accommodating future needs and numbers to the earth's natural
capacities and resources will give rise to a transformation of
human values, social institutions and economic structures on an
order which could ultimately approach that of the agricultural
and industrial revolutions. The coming transformation is lengthy
in duration: a period from a half to a full century. It is
enormous in scope: a three-fold increase in world population. And
it is awesome in its implications for change: the need to lower
birth rates drastically; the need to provide specially for the
poor and disadvantaged, the upheavals of migration, the expansion
of the labour force, and the growth of metropolitan areas; the
need for massive substitutes in primary energy and accompanying
adjustments in agriculture and industry; the need to promote
intensive environmentally-sound resource use; and the need to
meet the tremendous requirements of the developing countries for
food, health, education and housing, or more generally, to be
equipped to handle not just "another world" but a
second and third world "on top of this, equal in numbers,
demands and hopes. "

Report of the Secretary-General,
United Nations Economic and
Social Council,

This report was prepared within the framework of the United
Nations University's Programme on the Use and Management of
Natural Resources. The views expressed are those of the authors
and not necessarily those of the United Nations University.